Pubdate: Wed, 03 Jul 2002
Source: Miami Herald (FL)
Copyright: 2002 The Miami Herald
Contact:  http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/262
Author: Lucien O. Chauvin

PERU DECLARES ITS COCA CUTBACKS ARE OVER

U.S. Goal in Andes Dealt a Setback

LIMA - The Peruvian government has abruptly halted forced eradication of 
coca plants and suspended crop substitution programs in coca-growing 
valleys, dealing a major blow to U.S. efforts to halt cocaine production in 
the Andes. As a result, the U.S. operation to control illegal drug crops in 
Peru -- heretofore considered an unqualified success -- is nearly paralyzed 
as farmers and government officials question its effectiveness and demand 
changes.

The sudden development cast doubts over the future of U.S. efforts to stop 
the cultivation of coca plants and cocaine production throughout the region.

In Colombia, the anti-drug effort is tied to an intensifying guerrilla war, 
while in neighboring Bolivia a determined anti-eradication candidate, Evo 
Morales, made a strong showing in Sunday's presidential election.

U.S. officials were apparently caught off-guard by the Peruvian 
government's move last week, since it follows by only three months a visit 
by President Bush, who promised to triple anti-drug aid to Peru by raising 
it to $195 million.

"President Toledo recognized last week the necessity of eradicating at 
least 54,000 acres of Peruvian coca to end that country's role in the narco 
trade and he set this as a goal of his administration," said one baffled 
U.S. official.

"The manual eradication of coca is essential to reach this goal, along with 
interdiction and alternative development, and agreement with coca growers 
to halt eradication of their illegal crop makes it impossible to achieve 
this any time soon," the official added.

The Peruvian decision follows criticism of the U.S. effort to eradicate the 
coca plant -- from which cocaine is made -- by coca farmers and government 
officials.

"We want to completely change the way programs have been operating because 
they are too bureaucratic and have not worked," says Hugo Cabieses, an 
official at Devida, the Peruvian anti-narcotics agency.

There are currently about 86,000 acres of coca under production in Peru, 
but the number has been rising in recent months. The newest agreements with 
coca growers probably will generate an increase in coca production.

The agreements were reached Friday, when Devida suspended all 
coca-eradication programs in the Upper Huallaga Valley, where most drug 
crops are grown, after farmers threatened to lay siege to major cities.

The following day, Devida reached an agreement with coca growers in the 
Apurimac Valley, to the south, where the government accepted farmers' 
demands to suspend the activities of CARE, an Atlanta-based 
non-governmental agency that acts as the contractor for the U.S. Agency for 
International Development, or USAID.

The 10-point agreement calls for CARE to immediately stop all activities in 
the Apurimac Valley, where it recently completed the first year of a 
three-year contract for alternative development strategies to replace the 
coca economy.

The agreement also calls on the U.S. Embassy to work with Devida on 
evaluating the viability of present drug strategy.

"Everything that CARE has said is an absolute lie. They have done nothing 
to help coca farmers or address the problems of the valley," Cabieses said. 
"All the funds for alternative development stay with the middlemen."

The agreements reached between the farmers and government authorities are a 
major setback to U.S. policies in Peru, which was touted as one of the few 
examples of success in the war on drugs.

But the programs have never been popular with farmers. Last week, coca 
farmers called strikes to protest anti-narcotics policies, such as crop 
eradication and the alternative development plans that accompany them.

Authorities from Devida have basically agreed with the protesters, 
accepting the demands of farmers and putting a stop to most programs.

"We don't want eradication. They've eradicated our crops for 18 years and 
what have we gotten? Nothing. All this talk about other crops and markets 
for our products is just lies," says Lucy Macera, who owns a small coca 
plot deep in the Upper Huallaga Valley.

The U.S. government financially supports and trains Peruvian 
coca-eradication brigades, which are supposed to rip up at least 13,000 
acres of coca plants in the Upper Huallaga Valley this year.

The U.S. government budgeted $65 million this year for alternative 
development programs in Peru. The program is supposed to substitute crops, 
find markets for products and build infrastructure in areas where drug 
crops are grown.

Accusations that alternative development strategies have failed were part 
of a confidential report prepared by Peru's Comptroller General's Office 
last year.

The report criticized the effectiveness of most programs, offering as an 
example a project to substitute coca for bananas. Instead of costing $300 
an acre to plant bananas, the project ended up costing $4,000 an acre, the 
report said.

The fight over how best to run the anti-drug programs comes at a tough time 
for Peru, which is beginning to see the tide change after years of 
successfully reducing drug crops.

Once the world's principal source of coca, Peru lost its title to 
neighboring Colombia in the late 1990s after crop substitution programs 
began to take effect.

A number of factors, including eradication, a drop in price and the 
decision of Colombian traffickers to grow coca at home, helped Peru reduce 
the overall amount of land used for coca by 70 percent since 1995.

For many farmers, however, growing coca is a simple economic equation. The 
price of a 25-pound sack of coca leaves has jumped to $45 recently, close 
to the all-time high of $50 registered in the early 1990s. Even if the 
price were to fall by half, it would still bring in more than three times 
as much money as any other viable crop.
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MAP posted-by: Alex